


Small Painful Things

by TheLongDefeat



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Falling In Love, the doctor in love is a difficult thing, the doctor is complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 22:58:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13421412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLongDefeat/pseuds/TheLongDefeat
Summary: The Doctor didn't want to love her, and healing is a hurtful process.





	Small Painful Things

She didn’t ask him questions. 

That’s a lie - that’s a misstatement, anyways. Of course she asked questions. Fantastically curious, she was, her mind always nibbling away at the newest novelty, always seeking out new horizons. She asked him about the worlds they explored, the people, the triumphs and losses. But she didn’t ask questions of  _ him.  _

He didn’t volunteer much information, either; that was not his way, not this time around anyhow. He liked silence. He liked standing next to her and letting the quiet fall from above and settle like snow on the both of them, stretching and flexing and adhering to no laws of physics until it held them both, gently and very powerfully, and they were more together than words could ever hope to bring them. He loved that. 

When the Slitheen threaten to destroy Earth, the Doctor discovers something new about himself that he does not tell her, something he had feared since the Time War but not ever really been forced to articulate - that he is tired of making the hard choices. He is tired of creating his own tragedy. He is tired of grief, and he is tired of love, and though he had made a few valiant attempts not to love Rose he had failed and now the grief of her inevitable loss lived with him like a third heart. 

His soul is fertile soil for these weeds of vulnerable affection, and he resents it; where is the lofty remoteness of his people when he needs it most? Why was he made so close to the ground, crawling through the muck with the apes? 

“I could save the world, but lose you.”

She looks at him, and he sees what she sees - the Last Time Lord, Saviour of the Universe, a hero in a leather cape. She sees a man, better than other men. She sees an alien. 

All at once, he wants to talk: he wants to tell her of his people, of his history and his home, of his slow defeat. He wants to tell her about the _universe_. He wants to tell her that she doesn’t understand, that she is wrong, that he is not special. That he has fallen in love with her like any animal and he has hearts that don’t want breaking and can’t she just love him? Can’t she just accept he is not evil but he is ordinary and can’t she tell him it’s alright to make the selfish choice and can’t she expect just a little less, just this once, just this one singular instance in nine centuries?

But she can’t accept that, just as he can’t volunteer her to die. He doesn’t tell her and he doesn’t need to; she sees it shining in his strange eyes, and he sees shining in her human eyes something else that will be left unspoken. The fear, the threat of death - it’s worth it for her ticket off this little rock. And the grief, the loneliness - it’s worth it for this vibrant living thing that grows within him and  _ sings. _

They take cover in the closet and he holds her hand and he doesn’t shield her body with his own and a vicious, rotten piece of him nestled somewhere between his two hearts hopes she will die. 

Or, if she does not die, that she will promise him forever.

 

FIN

  
  
  
  



End file.
